


A Story Forgotten

by miraellie



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Thor (Comics)
Genre: Genderfluid!Loki, Genderfluid!Loki/Sigyn, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraellie/pseuds/miraellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, there was goddess tricked into marrying the God of Evil. Or so the story goes.<br/>All stories are lies, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Let me tell you a story.

Once, there was a girl. (Isn’t there always?) She was not a princess. Her hair did not gleam golden in the sun, and her eyes were not the color of the sky in midday. Her skin was dark, far from her mother’s own paleness. Compared to her many sisters, she was considered plain.

(Too plain, too quiet, too watchful.)

This girl was not a princess.

This girl was a witch.

Spurring her mother’s Valkyries, the young witch took up magic, in love with how it shaped the Realms around her. She could not merely hear the wind rustle the leaves of a tree; she heard it speak to her, tell her of what a bird’s wing felt like while it soared, of what it was like to rush up the faces of cliffs, to become a storm. Water did not simply sparkle in the sunlight; it shone with magic, with possibility.

Magic was her calling, was her blood. In the sea of her sisters, she found one tiny part of the Realms she could carve out for herself, and so she did.

So it was.

This is how Sigyn Iwaldadottir came to be Loki Laufeyson’s wife: First, she rejected his proposal, as her hand was already promised to another. Then Loki, in his wickedness, killed her fiance and took his form.

(I did not say it would be a happy story, where princes prevail and true love wins the day. Or perhaps this is that story. Again, it all depends on how you look at it.) 

When the wedding was finished, Loki revealed himself. Sigyn, brave and true of heart, chose not to defy Asgard’s laws and remained Loki’s wife. For her loyalty, Odin named her the Goddess of Fidelity. 

And so it was. 

It is a tragic story. 

It is also a lie. 

Aren’t all stories, in the end?


	2. Satisfied

Sigyn had little patience for omens.

She’d always thought that a rather funny joke, seeing as how she was known for her patience. (Well. It was one of the things for which she was known.) The Lady of Patience, seeing a particularly out of place animal or element and sighing in exasperation? It was funny, or so she privately thought.

Which was why she was aiming her broom for an irritatingly stubborn omen that had been perched on her scarecrow all morning and, so far, showed no signs of leaving.

“Didn’t I put you up here for this exact purpose?” Sigyn grumbled to her scarecrow as she prodded the bird that sat on its shoulder.

The scarecrow blinked at her. “I scare off crows, Lady, not magpies.”

 _I set myself up for that one_ , Sigyn thought with a weary sigh. The magpie chattered at her and pecked at the broom bristles, flapping its wings in irritation.

“ _No_.” 

Another shove with the broom did little to deter the magpie. It simply flew to the other shoulder. The little beast even had the temerity to give her a smug look.

“Go away,” Sigyn said. “I’ve ignored all the rest of you. Why don’t you simply get the hint? Whatever it is you’re trying to tell me, I don’t want to hear it.”

The magpie shook its feathers and tilted its head at her.

_Have you lost your taste for mischief, Lady?_

Sigyn set her broom aside and crossed her arms over her chest. “Mischief? And when was the last time he used that particular toy, hm?” Scoffing, she took up her basket again and turned her back on the bird. If poking at it with a broom wasn’t enough to make it go away (and she hadn’t the heart to truly hit it) then perhaps simply ignoring it would—

A light weight settled on her shoulder. “Odin’s _beard_!” Sigyn glared at the bird now pecking affectionately at strands of her hair that had escaped her braid. The motion was so close to what _he’d_ once done that her heart gave a painful squeeze before she shoved that thought away.

_We are come to call you home, Lady Sigyn._

“I _am_ home.” Sigyn waved a hand to indicate the large garden she was walking through. Neat rows of vegetables laid out at her feet on one side of the main path, while on the other was a slight messier flower garden. The cottage that the gardens surrounded was small, barely big enough for one person, let alone someone of her height. It was nearly all one room – the kitchen and sitting room only just separated from the bedroom and bathroom by a wall.

Her mother would have hated it. Sigyn loved it, had loved it for several decades now. Loved the little village people who quietly did not bring up the fact that she had lived on the outskirts of town since before their grandparents had been born. Loved that they never brought up the fact that she didn’t age, or that her little medicines worked better than expected, or that her vegetables were some of the best in the country, or that she could grow things not easily grown in their part of the world.

It was far away from everything she’d ever known. That had been the whole point.

The magpie did not look impressed.

_Are you not still Princess of Asgard? You deserve better than to dirty your hands with work._

“Yes, well,” Sigyn said, setting her basket down next to her patch of strawberries. “Be that as it may, I’m happy here. And...” She swallowed hard before quietly voicing the thought that had repeated in her mind the last few years: “And my husband is dead. So why are you here?”

The bird hopped off her shoulder to the ground, caught a worm, and swallowed it whole before looking up at her to answer.

_Your husband lives. In a way._

Something squished in her palm and Sigyn glanced down to see she had crushed the strawberry she’d just picked. Murmuring an apology to the little plant, she wiped her hand off on her apron while she considered her words carefully.

 _My husband is dead,_ Sigyn thought. It was a tired refrain that had kept her awake at night. Her husband was dead and gone, and she was alone. She had grown… perhaps not happy, but resigned. Contentedly resigned, if such a thing existed.

“And so? He’s sent you to bring me back to his castle?” She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from her voice. “Has he decided he has need of a wife once again?”

_It would be easier to see it for yourself, Lady. You cannot ignore omens for long. The story always finds you, no matter where you try to hide yourself._

Sigyn had to laugh at that, though it wasn’t funny at all. “I thought my part in his story was done. I’m trying to find my own story, now.”

 _You will always be part of his story,_ the magpie told her, _as he is part of yours._ Then the bird screeched and took flight.

_Your husband waits, Lady._

She didn’t watch the bird fly away. Instead, Sigyn stared down at the ground, at the dirt she had faithfully tilled for decades. Somewhere, one of her goats bleated, and she could hear her chickens scratching at the ground. She examined the dirt under her nails. At the calluses on her palms, at her already olive-brown skin made darker by her time spent in the sun. Her dress was ragged and torn in places she’d yet to mend, her boots held together with enchanted stitching. She didn’t much feel like a wife, a Princess of Asgard, nor did she look the part.

Then again, she hadn’t when Loki had first proposed, either.

“I still say you should let me eat them.”

Sigyn forced herself to return to her work, finding the ripe strawberries, plucking them, and placing them in her basket. One of her many cats, Runa, came up beside her and laid down, stretching out languidly in the sunlight.

“You’d probably throw them right back up,” Sigyn said lightly, trying to hide the turmoil her emotions were in. “Eating omens can’t be good for you. Though they’re less omens at this point and more like hammers to the skull.”

Runa regarded her with yellow eyes. “So the magpies will stay friends and not food?”

“For now.”

“A shame. That one was particularly fat, and I am expecting again soon.”

“So you’ve said.” Finding the last of the strawberries, Sigyn stood and stepped over Runa on her way back to the cottage.

The little calico followed her, though reluctantly, as the sun was lovely and warm. She watched as Sigyn took off her boots and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Runa saw how her gaze became distant and how she fumbled with washing the strawberries. After Sigyn sighed for the tenth time--Runa counted them--the cat said, “Aren’t you a little old to be acting like a lovesick maiden, dear one? And over someone who abandoned you?”

While Sigyn didn’t cringe outwardly, her chest did give a twinge. Leave it to a cat to always be painfully blunt. Then again, it was what she needed to hear. “My husband is dead,” Sigyn repeated, though with less conviction than before.

“When has that ever stopped anyone, save for Baldr and occasionally Odin?”

“You don’t understand,” Sigyn said. “I… _felt_ him die. I know the exact second it happened.” It had felt as if her very being had split in two, and it had taken her weeks to stop crying. She hadn’t felt so wretched since… their sons.

Shying away from that thought, Sigyn continued. “I would have known if he’d come back. He never did.”

Runa’s ears twitched. “So this is not the Loki you married?”

“Perhaps not,” Sigyn said quietly, looking down at her strawberries and realizing she’d completely forgotten what she’d meant to do with them.

 _Your husband lives,_ were the magpie’s words.

_In a way._

“Oh, damn it,” she said as she scrubbed at her face with her hands. “I’m going to have to go, aren’t I?”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Runa said, licking at a paw. “Curiousity has always been your weakness, and take it from a cat, sometimes satisfaction is not enough.”

But for the chance that Loki may still be alive? Sigyn’s breath hitched at the very thought. That Loki, some version of him, even some remnant of him may still exist, and she could at least get the goodbye she’d been denied?

It wouldn’t be satisfaction, but it would be some kind of closure. That would have to be better than satisfaction.

“Runa,” Sigyn said, her thoughts full of her husband, “I’m going on a trip.”


	3. Interlude: In Every Universe

Let me tell you a story.

Once, there was a girl. There is always a girl, just as there is always a boy. The girl was scared of everything and tried to hide herself away from the Worlds; the boy was quick to laugh as someone fell into a trap of his own making. (Always harmless fun. Until they weren’t. But that is for later.)

In some other story, perhaps they never would have met. The girl was not someone who would have ever crossed paths with a Prince.

(The girl underestimated herself; just as there is always a Loki and a Thor, in every universe, there is always a Sigyn as well. But she did not know that yet.)

Yet meet they did, in the Golden Realm of Asgard. Her mother and uncle became war hostages, and the girl and her many sisters were simply part of the deal. Try as she may to fade into the background, she was noticed – by only one person, but arguably the most important person in the room.

The boy saw her—her dark skin, brown eyes, black hair, the way she hunched her shoulders and glanced around fearfully—and felt something he’d not felt from anyone else in Asgard yet, not even his brother: Kinship. He understood her though he did not yet even know her name.

The Wyrd works its mysteries, its stories, in even the smallest of moments.

It would be sweet to say that the girl saw him as well, and in that moment of connection, of recognition, they fell in love then. That is how most stories would put it. And in another world, perhaps it was so. But in this one, the girl did not notice him past the brief, shy glance she’d stolen when her family was introduced to their captors. It was not that she didn’t care about him, because the girl cared painfully deeply for everyone, even people she’d never even met.

Sigyn Iwaldadottir, truly the daughter of no one, simply feared being found out for the fraud she was.

But Odin did not care enough to look too closely at her, or at how little she resembled Freyja. Who cared about the half-breed daughter of a war hostage? (Odin would never think of her again until centuries later. But again – a story for another time.) Sigyn faded into the background for him, for his blood family, for everyone in the Throne room that day—

Except for Loki Laufeyson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There is always a Loki and a Thor in every universe" comes from Blood Brothers. In it, Karnilla shows Loki his fate, "the fate of every Loki", which is to be tied to the rocks and have a snake drip poison on him, while his "devoted lady" spares him as much pain as possible with her bowl.
> 
> In trying to make a grand universal myth for Thor and Loki, the writers accidentally made it so that Sigyn also existed in every universe, and in every universe, she is Loki's wife. This is never brought up again and Sigyn does not show up in Blood Brothers properly. 
> 
> She and her story are always forgotten. Who cares about the wife of the villain, after all?
> 
> \--
> 
> I'm gleefully ignoring the AoA canon that Freyja = Frigga and all that jazz. While it's an idea some scholars and practitioners are fond of, I don't adhere to it myself, and goodness knows it'll probably be rewritten in some future Thor comic anyway. And it's not like I was sticking all that close to the canon in the first place.


End file.
